Blood, sweat and no beers
JOCKEY Ryan Maloney believes he will only need to give Alligator Blood a sniff to win the $2 million Magic Millions 3YO Guineas today but says he will have to hold off celebrating by a week.
Maloney has the mount for trainer David Vandyke’s $1.75 favourite for the 1400m race where he will jump from barrier 8 and chase the $1,160,000 on offer to the winner.
Gold Coast-based Maloney said he would not overcomplicate the ride on a horse with so much talent.
“Yeah I’m confident. A horse like him, you only have to give him a half a decent ride and he does the rest,” Maloney said.
“You just have to treat it like another race. The more you go into it, the more you complicate things.”
Maloney, 34, moved to Queensland from Melbourne to replace retired jockey Jeff Lloyd as the main rider for father-son training duo Toby and Trent Edmonds in mid 2018.
He is booked to ride the Edmonds-trained Winter Bride in the Group 1 Telegraph Handicap (1200m) in Wellington, New Zealand, next Saturday, meaning he will have to curb any temptation to celebrate with vigour should he win at Aquis Park today.
“I would like to (let my hair down) but I still have to focus on next Saturday – I’m going over to New Zealand to focus on a Group 1 race,” he said.
“As much as I would have liked to let my hair down, I probably would have written myself off and taken a week to recover.
“I’ll just have a quiet celebration with the owners (if things go well). But I’ll ride on Sunday (at the Sunshine Coast) and make sure I’m spot-on for next Saturday in New Zealand.”
A win would be extra sweet for Maloney given he only recently returned from injuries sustained when a horse he was riding tripped after crossing the line at Doomben late last year.
“I punctured a lung and four ribs …. the horse just tripped over,” Maloney said.
“It happened so quick. The second one was at the Sunshine Coast, a horse had a heart (issue) and it just collapsed about the 200m mark. I did my ribs again … they took a long time to heal … different spots but same ribs.”